1. Technical Field
The invention relates to the field of data storage and redundancy. More specifically the invention relates to a manner of fairly allocating a multi-dimensioned disk array among competing parties through a negotiating process.
2. Description of Related Art
Storage is a critical component of almost every software application in use today. As the storage industry has matured, there have been increases to both the number of storage options and the performance of data entry and retrieval. Storage options include, e.g., magnetic tape, Hard Disk Drives (HDD), CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, and optical media. HDD category includes, e.g., standalone HDDs, arrays of disks and complex virtual storage environments.
Disk arrays may be classified, e.g., Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 (which have enhanced redundancy and performance), RAID 1+5 and RAID 5, among others. Virtual storage environments include Storage Area Networks (SANs). Each storage option has an associated cost and service level, both of which vary widely.
Some applications, e.g. hosted on one or more servers, occasionally get markedly increased demands for the features of the application. This can result in rapid fluctuations in CPU utilization, network traffic and particularly, for storage. Sometimes these “peak” times are well known and can be identified by a scheduled event, e.g. a date, time and duration. Other times, the peaks are unscheduled, and some responsiveness is needed in an ad hoc manner.